Development of Creative Commons licenses

["Greg London" <email AT greglondon.com>]

Matt Scheuerman said:
> So from this qualified group of lawyers and license afficiandos, is
> there a pretty clear suggestion for my options?

Matt,

Here's your license requirements:

(1) users can employ the graphics for any medium and can use the
graphics for commercial and non-commercial work.

(2) Credit to the original author in any form is not mandatory but is
highly appreciated.

(3) The files may be changed/updated/manipulated/redistributed as long as
they are accompanied by a text file giving original credit to the
author.

It seems like (2) and (3) are conflicting.
(2) says credit is NOT mandatory
(3) says credit should be in an accompanying file if modified

So, first of all, is it mandatory or is it highly appreciated?

in a later email, you say:
> but the most important thing about distributing these graphics
> and giving them to the world is that they should not require credit.

So, if by "credit", you mean you don't require your name in the
movie credits if your image is used in a movie, then you don't
require attribution.

The thing is I don't know how to put your name in an "accompanying file"
if the original is modified. One approach is to put your name in
the Copyright Notice and require that all copyright notices be maintained.

According to this:
http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/fullrights

"Every license requires licensees
 * to keep any copyright notice intact
   on all copies of your work; "

Basically, you want the CreativeCommons-Attribution only
license (CC-BY), but then you want to waive all attribution.

I'm not sure if there was ever a clear way to waive
the attribution requirements. The license generally says
attribution must be given if the information is provided
by the author, but this includes teh title of the work,
and the author's name, which will be provided by virtue
that the author's name will be in the copyright notice,
if nothing else.

Perhaps you could use the CC-BY license and put a single
disclaimer saying
"All Attribution requirements are waived by the author"

This will then mean that the copyright notices will always
tag along with the work, but you do not require that your
name be in a movie's closing credits, etc.


Hope that helps
I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice